Guardian Angel
by The TO
Summary: The world is a harsh place, no one knows this lesson better than Angel. She was constantly teased around her neighborhood growing up because of her disability. Despite this, and with the help of her father, she grew into a capable young woman, regardless of her blindness.
1. Prologue

_**A/N:**_ This is a fic idea I've been toying around with for a long time now. I had several chapters of it written on my old computer, but lost it all when it got trashed. I'm mostly doing this from memory, so if some things seem off don't hesitate to let me know. Also if anyone wanted to beta read this story for me it'd be greatly appreciated.

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Quiet. If there was ever one word that could summarize the apocalypse, it was quiet. All the noise pollution that came with society died with it, leaving nature free to overrun what remained. I was well acquainted with nature. My dad took me hunting all the time starting from when I was a little girl. He taught me what each and every sound meant. The soft bellow of a doe searching for a mate. The mournful howl of a coyote. The snap of twigs and soft growl that meant a boar was rooting around somewhere. I didn't hear much of that anymore.

Instead, my father, mother, and I were all trapped in my parent's apartment with everything except the fire escape boarded up. I hadn't left the place in what felt like forever but in reality was probably only a month. Our last outing was just after the military firebombed the central part of the city.

The radio clicked off and my father let out a defeated sigh. "I've tried every frequency, there's no one out there." He grumbled out wearily. He had been trying to find someone, anyone, that was organized enough to have a radio or that could hear him. We had been talking to the refugee center, but they were overrun before we could solidify a plan to get to them. My father's wheelchair squeaked as he rolled back over to the couch.

"Angel you need to eat something." My mother's voice whispered to me, worry permeating her words. We were running out of rations, my father only having enough squared away for a month if we all ate 3 a day. He had intended to restock, but then the apocalypse happened. He had cursed up a storm, saying that this sort of bad luck ran in his family.

"I'm not hungry right now." I lied. I was starving, but I wanted to conserve as much as possible. We weren't leaving the apartment, so we didn't need as much nutrition. My mom saw it differently though.

"You're a growing girl, you need the food." She said in just the right tone of voice that made me want to give in.

"The only growing that's happening is mold from being cooped up in here." I replied with half-hearted anger. Mom and dad knew that I knew that I couldn't ever truly be angry at them, and that I was just venting.

"I know, honey, but you really should eat something. A snack at least." My mother pleaded.

My stomach chose that moment to betray me by bellowing its opinion on food. My father let out a short, amused chuckle. I could only sigh in defeat. "Alright, but you're splitting it with me." The cabinet doors had long since been taken down to use as boards for the windows, so finding the pop-tarts was a cinch. As I fiddled with the wrapper, a muffled cry of pain sounded from somewhere else in the building. My hand went to my PX4 immediately, all thoughts of food forgotten.

Normally, firearms were strictly forbidden, but the only silenced gun that was in the living room was mine. My dad had nicked the suppressor for me from a gun shop after the dead started walking. I had had this gun since I was nine years old. It was practically my best friend.

"Dan, what was that?" My mom asked softly, a slight waver betraying the worry she felt.

"I think it was the Macintoshes. That sounded like Danny." He whispered back in an equally worried tone. A second later, a pair of muffled, unsuppressed gunshots sounded out. My mom let out a soft shriek of fear. The grip I had on the handle of my gun tightened as I focused everything I had on trying to hear what was going on. I moved closer to the door, my snack going forgotten on the counter, and pressed my ear against the unreinforced wall. For a few seconds, I heard nothing. Then, the muffled thumps began. I knew that sound anywhere. There were dead inside the building. I slowed my breathing to almost nothing, trying to hear someone. Nothing, just the staccato of the dead pounding away on whatever they were trying to get into. Before I moved away, I heard the sound of someone walking. No it wasn't someone, and it wasn't alone. Soon I heard many different pairs of footsteps. They were walking in the direction of the dead that were pounding on what was probably a door. It sounded like they were just in the hallway. Turning to my parents, fear undoubtedly evident on my face, I mouthed the words 'they're right outside'. The only sign I had that my parents had understood me was a short gasp coming from my mother.

After a couple moments of silence, I heard my dad's voice. "Angel." He sounded weary, resigned to do something that he didn't want to do. "It's time." Despair overrode every other emotion I felt. We had discussed this a lot back when the refugee center was still active. Our plan had been that if the dead got into our building, we would all go out the fire escape to our van, but we had been forced to abandon said van on our last run. This was also back when we were all eating three square meals a day. We had been on one a day for the last two weeks. Without the van, the plan wouldn't work. They had told me I would be going by myself if the worst were to happen, but I had mostly just ignored it, having no intention of leaving them alone.

I heard the faint squeaks of his wheelchair as he rolled over to the kitchen area. "No, dad. Please." I spoke in a soft, hoarse whine as I quietly hurried over to him. I didn't want to abandon them after everything they had done for me! I could feel myself about to cry.

Familiar, calloused hands were placed on my cheeks, and I heard my father's soft breathing. "Angel, listen. I know you don't like it. But this is how it has to be. You have to go." I suppressed a sob, not wanting those monsters to come any faster than they were. "Now that they're inside, it's only a matter of time before they find us."

"I-I-I can go get the van a-and I can drive it over here. You and mom can hop onto the top of it and we can leave like that." I pleaded, tears streaming down my face. My plan was sound, if I could actually drive a vehicle. The couple times my dad had tried to help me learn we ended up crashing into something.

"We both know that won't work." He said softly, though there was a mote of sadness to his voice. "Besides, I'm a paraplegic. I couldn't survive out there. And as much as I've tried to convince her otherwise, your mother won't leave me. We talked about it a lot and… we want to go out on our own terms, not let a bunch of monsters do it for us." He released a breathy sigh that told me he was in a similar state as I was. A thumb wiped away some of my tears. "Don't cry, honey." My mom suddenly wrapped me in a hug from behind.

"He's right. You have what it takes to survive out there." I felt my mom rest her chin on my shoulder. "I guarantee that there's someone out there who's gonna need your help." My father let go and returned to the counter, presumably packing away the remaining MRE's. As much as I didn't want to admit it, he _was_ right. It would only be a matter of days, if not hours, before one of them smelled us in here and started scratching away at our door, alerting others to our presence.

I let out a quiet sigh and nodded. "Alright." Another deep breath. "Okay. I'll- I'll go." My mom squeezed me tighter, wanting to make the most of our last few minutes together. My dad rolled off in the direction of the bedroom.

"My little angel." My mom cooed softly. I turned and wrapped her in a hug, burying my face in her shoulder. Unable to hold them in any longer, I did my best to muffle my sobs in her thick sweater. "Shhhh, it's okay honey." She gently rubbed my back, doing what she could to help me. Eventually, I heard my dad roll back into the living room.

He cleared his throat. "Hold out your arms." His voice wavered, telling me that he was holding back tears too. It hurt, hearing my dad so broken up, but I obliged anyway. I felt him put a heavy backpack on me, grunting slightly at the weight of it. "This is all of our ammo that matches your pistol, a backup .45, and this." My mom moved away and he handed me…

"Oh dad, I can't take your rifle." I whispered incredulously. I knew this rifle like the back of my hand. It was the one that Dad had trained me with. Granted the HK416 he had wasn't exactly _legal_ for civilian ownership, but my dad didn't have much issue with that, doubly so since the world ended. I cradled the gun like it was an infant, relishing in the feel of the well maintained weapon. It would undoubtedly be extremely useful in surviving outside, and as much as I coveted the gun, I couldn't take it.

"Please take the rifle, Angel." My dad spoke firmly, leaving no room for arguing. It seemed he had predicted my denial of the weapon. I could only nod glumly in reply. Dad helped me slip the shoulder strap on, and then wrapped me in one last hug.

"I love you." I whispered softly.

"We love you too, Angel." My dad replied. "Now go on, I want to make love to your mother one last time." I furrowed my nose in disgust.

"Ew, dad. Gross!" I balked, slapping him in the chest. My dad answered me with hearty laughter.

"Just kidding, hun. But it made you smile, didn't it?" I could practically hear the smile in his words, and he was right. I _was_ smiling.

"Yeah, it did." After adjusting my sunglasses and pulling my hood up, I walked towards the fire escape. Before I could open the window, a muted snarl and a thump on the front door drew my attention. My heart sank, it seemed that the dead had found us sooner than we all thought.

"You should get going, Angel. The further away from here you get the better." My mom's always wise words struck home and filled me with determination.

"Love you guys," I called out one last time and hopped out the window. Outside, the streets were quiet. My father's meticulously packed bag made no noise as I carefully headed down the steep stairs. I held the HK with one hand, thumb resting against the safety just in case, and the other hand held onto the railing for balance. When I reached the lowest level of the fire escape, I let the HK rest against my chest and mounted the ladder that lead down. The last few feet of said ladder were missing, so I had to drop to the ground. Thankfully, nothing came loose and none of the dead made any indication that they had heard me.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I returned my hand to the HK and headed towards the street. My parent's apartment complex was on the corner, and the entrance was opposite the fire escape I had just come from, so the odds of there being any dead people were slim. They were all likely heading for the front door, as morbid as that thought was.

From the exit onto the street, dad had told me to head left, following the curve of the road. That would lead me out of the city and into the countryside where there would hopefully be less dead people. As I walked, I kept my ears peeled for the telltale shuffle of undead feet or the guttural growl that told me I'd been spotted. My luck was holding it seemed, as not only had I gone undetected so far, but the way forward was relatively clear. I only had to circumvent the occasional burned out or abandoned car or decaying corpse. Though there weren't very many of the latter. Thankfully, in the few brief outings I had with my father prior to being trapped in their apartment, I had gotten a chance to acclimate to the stench of decaying flesh.

About five minutes later, the road started to curve right. Ahead, I heard the distinctive growl of two of the undead, one low to the ground, and one at eye level with me. I paused for a moment, shouldered the HK, flipped off the safety, and fired. Two suppressed rounds left the chamber and hit home in the area right above where I had heard the standing undead growling from. The growling stopped and I heard a body hit the ground with a meaty thump. The undead on the ground had now stood up, so I did the same to it.

My dad had a dual twenty round magazine, so I had sixteen left before I had to switch. Taking a moment of silence to listen for any potential undead that had heard the ruckus proved to yield nothing. There were no more undead nearby. I returned the weapon to a resting position, flipping on the safety as I did so. There was a lot of walking yet to do, and I couldn't rest until I had found a safe place to stay for the night.


	2. Chapter 1

It had been some time since I had truly exercised. Other than our brief runs for supplies, I hadn't really even _walked_ a long distance in a good while. Between that and lugging about fifty pounds more than I was used to, I was rapidly tiring. I needed to find shelter fast. Thankfully, once I had gotten out of the city, I only ran into an undead every half hour or so. Right when I was about to give up and hoist myself into a tree, I heard careful, measured steps that crushed leaves and twigs underfoot. It was a living person. Soft, as if trying to avoid detection.

I drew my Storm and flicked the safety off. After ensuring that the suppressor was tight, something my dad told me I had to do since the Storm wasn't designed with a suppressor in mind, I turned to face where the person was. "Hello?" I called out cautiously. The footsteps stopped. I tried to listen if they were sneaking away, but they just flat out weren't moving. "Say something or I'm gonna shoot." I ordered.

"Alright! Don't shoot!" A male voice called out. He sounded young, likely in his early twenties. Footsteps crunched towards me slowly, eventually stopping some ten feet away.

"Who are you?" I demanded, not dropping my aim from the man.

His feet shifted, but not in a way that told me he was going to run. It seemed more out of nervousness than anything. "I'm Glenn. I have a camp not far from here. I was just heading back after a supply run." He didn't seem that malicious. From the inflection of his voice he seemed more awkward than anything. "Are you gonna shoot me?"

I suppressed a chuckle. "No, I'm not gonna shoot you. I just didn't know if you were someone who had ill intentions. I've run into more than a couple people wanting to loot my father's apartment." Mainly for the guns that they knew were stashed there, him being a veteran and all. Though they often didn't fancy being on the business end of said guns. I put the safety of my Storm back on and re-holstered it. Glenn breathed out a sigh of relief, and I heard what sounded like his arms slumping to his sides. "Why were you hiding anyway?"

"Oh, um." He let out an awkward half laugh. "It's just with the hood and the rifle you looked kinda scary. At first I thought you were a geek, but you weren't walking like one of them." A geek? Is that what he called them? It honestly sounded a lot better than undead. Rolled off the tongue more smoothly.

I patted the HK once. "This is only for the geeks, not people." As optimistic as that sounded, I knew it was only a matter of time before humanity inevitably went 'Mad Max' and started killing each other. "I'm Angel, by the way." I offered as a way to break the ice and hopefully defuse the tension that he felt towards me.

Crunching footsteps from the direction that I had been heading before meeting Glenn drew my attention. They were evenly spaced, yet moving at a fair speed, meaning it was another person. "Glenn!" Another male voice called out, this one with a slight southern twang.

"Over here, Shane!" I heard my new companion yell out, making me wince at the volume of it. Surely any undead nearby would be inevitably making their way here. The loud footsteps drew close, before stopping a short ways away.

"Who's this?" 'Shane' asked, his voice adopting a curious tone.

Glenn walked a few steps closer to Shane. "This is Angel, I was about to bring her to the camp." There was a brief pause of about four seconds before Shane spoke again. I could practically _feel_ his eyes on me.

"That's a fancy piece you got there." He commented. I heard more crunching footsteps, this time away from me. They were lighter than Shane's had been so I presumed that it was Glenn walking away towards camp.

"Piece?" I asked quizzically? Piece of what?

"Your rifle." Shane elaborated.

"Um, yeah." I grasped the vertical grip on the front of the rifle protectively. "It was my father's gun."

I heard him take a step closer. "You know that kinda gun ain't exactly civilian _legal_, right?" Before I could reply, I heard loud, shuffling footsteps coming from behind me followed by the soft gurgle that told me that it was an undead. In one smooth motion, I flicked the HK's safety off, turned, and put one bullet right at the source of the gurgling. The body thumped to the ground, dead again. Judging by the noise, it had been about twenty feet away.

"Holy shit," Shane whispered, awestruck. After taking a moment to listen for any of its friends, and confirming the lack thereof, I put the safety back on and shot Shane a confident smirk. "Um, alright then. It's getting' dark and we was just about to serve dinner." I heard Shane start walking. It was in a direction that was slightly off from where I had been going. Luck must be on my side considering that if I hadn't found Glenn, I might have missed their camp altogether.

About a minute later, mainly consisting of me struggling to keep up with Shane's long gait, I began to hear the din of conversation. There were about a dozen different voices, though I couldn't distinguish anything that was being said. As we drew closer, I heard Glenn's voice too, along with a crackling fire. Clanking of silverware and glass dishes. The smell of some kind of stew or soup. My stomach was rumbling eagerly at the thought of food. My hunger spurred me on, letting me catch up with Shane and then some. Our journey led us uphill past what seemed to be a large, boxy vehicle, likely an RV.

Crickets had started their song while on the way over here, enforcing that it was well and truly nighttime. The conversation quieted as Shane and I rounded the corner into the camp proper. "Attention everyone." Shane announced, bringing the conversation to an end. "On the way back from his run, Glenn picked up a stray. Her name is Angel. This brings the total number of survivors in our camp to thirty-three." There was a brief, almost half-hearted round of applause. Hushed conversation began to float around the camp. I managed to pick out my name being said no less than half a dozen times. "Now um, we don't have a spot cleared for another tent, so you're gonna have to room with someone until tomorrow."

Someone cleared their throat. "The table in the R.V. folds down into a bed. She can stay there." A man with a pleasant sounding voice commented. That didn't sound too bad. I'm fairly certain that my father had packed my old tent that we used on our camping trips in this backpack. I would have to take a moment tomorrow to peruse the contents.

Speaking of, "Would it be alright if I set my stuff in there?" I asked, adjusting the aforementioned backpack.

A creaking lawn chair told me that someone had stood up. "Sure, lemme get the door for ya. It can be kinda tricky to open the first time." The same man from before spoke, heavy footsteps signaling his approach. "I'm Dale, by the way."

"Nice to meet you, Dale." I replied cordially as I followed after him, catching several mentions of my father's HK in the group's conversation.

"So what's the story behind that?" I heard him ask as the door to the RV clicked open. As it seemed to be the talk of the camp, I presumed that he was referring to my rifle.

"It was my father's. He figured it would be better in my hands than his." I replied as we ascended the steps into the RV proper. The interior smelled of lemon scented disinfectant and fabric softener. The door banged shut behind me and I heard Dale move further into the RV, so I quickly followed. Dale exerted a grunt of effort, and I heard a click that was likely from the table-bed.

"You can tuck your stuff under the table while I fetch some sheets and a pillow from the closet." Dale headed further into the RV. First thing off was the HK, which got tucked into a cubby underneath the bench. I had originally planned to just lay it underneath, barrel facing the wall, but thankfully the benches had open bottoms. Next came the backpack, which got placed into the one opposite the rifle. With both of those off, I felt much freer and more maneuverable. I left the Storm holstered to my side and did some stretches to loosen up after carrying that much weight for so long.

Dale promptly returned, handing me a sheet, a comforter, and a pillow. It seemed that I had found the source of the fabric softener smell. I tossed the pillow to the far end of the table-bed, which is right when Dale spoke again. "Do you need any help setting it up?" He asked, a small mote of worry in his voice for some reason.

I shook my head in the negative. "Thank you, but I'm fine." Dale paused for a moment more before exiting the RV, leaving me alone. After spreading the blanket out and flattening it, I sat down and took a moment to unwind and decompress. My hand automatically went to my father's dog tags. The day he officially retired was the day he gave them to me. It was odd. I knew that they were likely dead, but it didn't _feel_ like they were. Maybe it just hadn't sunk in yet.

I could almost imagine that it was just the three of us on another camping trip in the woods, and any second now my dad would come walking up to give me a big, bone-crushing hug. Then he would share a funny story about his time in the army, or he would tell me some dumb joke that inevitably made my mom and I laugh. The door swung open before I could think any further.

"Angel?" A woman's soft voice called out. "Dinner is ready if you want to come and get some." Her voice had an almost motherly tone to it. Beyond her, the sound of faint conversation made me hesitant. So many new people to meet. I had never been good at socializing with others.

Taking a deep breath, I replied. "Yeah, sure. I'll be right out."

It seemed that she had noticed my reluctance to head out into the camp. "If you'd like I could bring you a bowl. It's pork and beans with added Vienna sausages." The woman offered. That honestly didn't sound too bad.

I shot her a small smile. "Alright. Thank you."

"It's no problem, sweetie. I'm Lori, by the way." She added and I could hear the smile in her voice. The door clicked closed and soft footsteps padded away. My dad's dog tags got tucked back into my shirt. I took my jacket off, crumpled it into a ball, and placed it between my pillow and the wall of the RV. The only place I felt that my sunglasses were safe was on my head, but keeping them on would likely end with them being broken as I shifted in my sleep. It was with great reluctance that I took them off and placed them on the counter past the head of my new bed.

The door opened again and heavier footsteps entered the RV. "Hey," Glenn's familiar voice greeted. "Lori told me to bring you this." The smell made my stomach rumble in approval. I held out my hands and felt him place a rather hefty bowl into them.

"Thank you, Glenn." I replied, giving the man a friendly smile.

The meal was the most filling that I'd had in quite some time. It left a pleasant warmth in my belly. After some feeling my way around, I managed to locate a sink to put my empty bowl and spoon in. Lethargy was setting in. I felt the familiar, full body slowness that told me I had been up for too long, or expended too much energy.

Outside the RV, I heard multiple sets of footsteps going in all directions, along with many faint, indiscernible conversations. It seemed that dinner was winding down, as most of them were heading away from the RV. I quickly focused in on two pairs that were steadily getting closer. Light, like Lori's had been. I couldn't make out any words, but the soft voices told me that it was a conversation between two women, one of whom seemed to be grumbling. Moments later, the door clacked open and twin sets of feet clomped into the RV.

One pair hurried past me and I heard a door slam further in the RV. "You're Angel, right?" The other one asked from her position still near the door.

"Yep." I replied, turning my head to appear as if I was looking in her direction. Experience told me that doing this always made the other person feel more comfortable when speaking to me.

"I'm Andrea, and the one who all but sprinted past you is my sister Amy. She's still getting over a stomach bug and has trouble keeping solid food down." Andrea elaborated. To prove her point, I heard Amy's muffled heaving through the wall. Gross.

"Good to meet you, Andrea. So you and Amy sleep in here?" I asked politely while doing my best to tune out the events taking place in the bathroom. It wasn't as easy as I'd hoped it would be.

"No, we have our own tent, it's just Dale in here. And you too now I guess, at least until tomorrow." Andrea's explanation made sense, given that she hadn't many a move towards what I presumed was the RV's main bedroom. "Um, are you okay?" She asked after a moment.

"Pardon me?" I asked confusedly.

She paused for a couple seconds, as if uncertain of what to say. "It's just, it seems like you're kinda zoning out." Oh, that's what she meant? I always had a hard time focusing on people, which is the main reason I wore the sunglasses for. It was easy to fake the actions of paying attention if people couldn't see your eyes. I figured playing it off was for the best.

Pretending to stifle a yawn, I replied. "Yeah, I'm pretty beat. Walked all the way from Atlanta to get here." Given what my father had told me about distances, I figured that I had walked a good ten or fifteen miles to get here from Atlanta in my five hour walk.

Andrea let out an impressed whistle. "Wow, that's easily a forty minute drive." There was a few moments of awkward silence, during which I caught a snippet of Amy puking again, before Andrea spoke. "Your rifle is pretty cool, I haven't seen a silenced weapon before."

"Suppressed." I answered automatically. "Not silenced."

Andrea hummed in confusion. "What's the difference?" She asked.

I paused a moment to think. "Well, basically most guns emit around 140 to 160 decibels of sound. My pistol, with the suppressor and because it uses subsonic ammo, softens it down to about 100. That's about how loud your average hair dryer is. Now, if I had a silencer on this instead, that would drop it to about 85, which is about how loud a blender is."

"That's a very interesting way of putting it." Andrea replied, sounding genuinely interested in my explanation. Thankfully, the door to the bathroom slammed open and Amy stumbled out, cutting off any further awkward conversation.

"Ugh, kill me." Amy moaned bitterly, and promptly headed back outside.

"It was nice talking to you, Angel." Andrea called out as she followed her sister. The door clicked shut softly, leaving me alone once more. I let out a sigh of relief and undid the belt holster that my Storm sat in. The holster got tossed on top of my jacket, and I cradled the Storm in my hands. A cursory inspection of the weapon revealed that it was perfectly fine, safety still on. I tucked the weapon under my pillow, laid down, and closed my eyes.

…which was as far as I got before I heard more footsteps just outside the RV, this time from behind near where I was sleeping. At first I thought that it was someone that had snuck off to use the bathroom, but as it got closer they seemed to be dragging their feet. Then, the stench of decay hit me. Without hesitation, I grabbed my Storm and hurried outside, flicking the safety off as I went. Some people were still talking idly, and noticed my sudden appearance if the cutoff in their conversations was any indication. The geek had spotted someone, and was emitting a low growl. Perfect.

"Angel, what are you-" A man, Shane, spoke from ahead and to the left of me, likely being the target that the geek had focused on. Right as it appeared in the camp proper, I steadied my aim and fired. The sound of the suppressed gunshot gave several people a start. The geek let out one last gurgle and fell to the ground. The breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding came out in a sigh of relief.

"Holy shit." I heard Andrea exclaim. "They haven't come up this far before." Murmurs of agreement, hesitant footstep patterns, and hushed conversations could be heard all around camp. Shane's clomping boots drew my attention as he moved close to the softly crackling fire.

"Alright. Dale, take your spot on the roof of the RV. T-Dog," I heard him pause for a moment, as if looking around. "Jim, stay here and keep watch for if any slip past us. Everyone else who's willing, grab a flashlight and a partner. We need to make sure that there aren't more on the way. Thankfully it's a clear night so visibility shouldn't be too much of an issue." With that said, the camp burst into action, a cacophony of zippers, low, worried voices, and what sounded like more than half a dozen firearms being loaded. I distinctly heard a shotgun cocking followed by Shane's heavy bootsteps approaching the RV and by extension, me. "Think you could stay up for another couple hours? Or at least until this whole situation gets sorted out?"

I still felt tired, but the undead always had a knack for ruining my chances at sleeping. "Sure." I answered after a moment.

"Thanks." He paused a moment, before releasing a heavy sigh. "And thank you, for killing that geek. I dunno if it'd've gotten me, but I hope I never find out."

This was something that I had been thinking about since coming here. First that one that I had killed in the forest after meeting Glenn, and now one all the way up here. "I think that it was probably following me. I made sure to kill the ones that I came across, but I guess I must have missed one that had been hiding or one that caught a glimpse of me from a distance." Shane placed a hand on my shoulder, giving me a start.

"It ain't no one's fault. Things happen that are out of our control, and the best we can do is to keep moving forward." He spoke in a low voice. He was right. Thinking about it would only invite madness. It was like what my dad had told me years ago. 'Don't focus on the 'shoulda woulda coulda', just on the 'can, will, and have to'.

"No problem." I told him. With that over with, he walked away. Not realizing my mistake, I attempted to put my Storm back in its holster. The gun dropped to the ground with a dull thud. Well it seemed that I _really_ wasn't going to be sleeping for a while now. After doing my best to brush the dirt from the exterior, I headed inside. It seemed that nobody had snuck inside the RV while I was distracted, leaving me free to figure out how to turn the table-bed back into a table.

Once I had shoved the blanket and sheet to the top of the bed near the pillow, I knelt down and attempted to find a switch or a latch. Upon not feeling anything of the sort, I gave the bottom of the table an experimental push, which bore fruit as it raised up half an inch. It seemed to use a telescoping system instead of any actual folding mechanism. After a short time, the table locked in place with a loud click, and no longer tried to fall back down. Grabbing both my backpack and the HK, I placed the former in the seat, the latter on the table, and slid into the open booth.

The first priority was to clean the smaller of my guns, thanks to my brief moment of clumsiness. After rummaging around, I managed to find my cleaning kit about halfway down. Given that I had done this literally hundreds of times, the whole process of field stripping, cleaning, and reassembling took less than three minutes. I tested the slide several times, listening for any catches that would have told me I missed something. Even though I knew that I wouldn't find anything, I always erred on the side of caution.

Since my dad always ensured that the ammo boxes were full, I learned to be able to tell them apart by weight. The .556 ammo that the HK uses weighs almost four times as much as the .45 that the Storm does. I placed my sidearm aside for now and fished out one of the hefty boxes of .556.

Before I got any further, the door to the RV opened and a single person walked in. Boots, like Shane, but with a practiced light step that spoke of someone accustomed to being quiet. It wasn't another woman that happened to be wearing boots because the RV creaked slightly under their weight. Given we were in rural Georgia, it was more than likely someone who goes hunting frequently.

A solid minute of silence later, I realized that this person wasn't going away. Having finished reloading, I replaced the mag and double checked that the safety was on. Without looking at whoever it was, I asked "What's up?"

"Just admirin' the view." He spoke with a heavy southern drawl and a slight rasp. "Always did like a woman that was good with guns. 'Specially a redhead." At first I was confused, but then I remembered that 'redhead' meant my hair. Like my mother, I was told that I had a bright, almost red-orange head of hair. Given that color was a concept that was forever out of my reach, I never paid much attention to it.

He moved, slowly, to sit in the booth across from me. "Name's Merle, darlin'."

"Angel," I replied politely as I packed my cleaning kit and the remaining ammo away. Once that was finished, I stood, grabbed the holster for my Storm, and put it back on. The full body tiredness I felt hadn't gone away, and I wanted nothing more than to flop down onto a bed and pass out. But there were more important things than sleep.

Right when I moved past Merle to retrieve my sunglasses, he blocked my path with an arm. "Now, I know you ain't goin' somewhere until we talk about the elephant in the room."

"Elephant in the room," I repeated, wondering exactly what he could be referring to. He remained silent, but he did drop his arm, so I reached forward to grab my sunglasses… only to discover them missing. I felt around, figuring that maybe I had misremembered where I put them. My search was interrupted when Merle let out a low chuckle.

"Lookin' for these?" Merle asked coyly and I heard a plastic scraping noise as something was placed on the table. When had he taken my sunglasses? A bolt of panic shot through me as I realized that he must have figured out my disability. Did he plan to tell the other people in this camp? How would they take the news that their newest survivor couldn't see? Would they try to take away my guns because of it? It seemed that Merle must have noticed my internal debate, because he spoke up again. "Sit down, girlie. Relax."

As uncomfortable as I was, I did as he asked. "You aren't gonna tell them, are you?" I swallowed nervously.

"'Tell them'?" He repeated incredulously. "That you're _blind_? That seems like a pretty important thing to keep secret."

I opened my mouth to reply, before I realized the sheer ridiculousness of my reasoning. "It may seem petty, considering what's going on in the world right now. But, I just want to be normal. Accepted. My whole life people have either looked down on me for my disability, or treated me like I couldn't do anything on my own. Everyone except my parents." A wistful sigh left my lips. "My mom never tried to help me needlessly, even though she was the one person in the world who had every right to. She used to read books to me. Transcribed movies too."

Merle sighed exasperatedly. "Get to the point, girl." I frowned at his impatience.

"The point is," I said louder than necessary. "I know that, whether they intend to or not, the second they find out about my disability they're going to treat me differently. I don't _need_ help. I can get around perfectly fine on my own. Walked all the way here from Atlanta, killing seventeen geeks along the way after all." Merle made a disgusting noise that told me of his disbelief.

"Yeah, and I'm a fairy princess." He retorted sarcastically. I failed to resist the urge to bury my head in my hands. After another few seconds of silence, Merle sighed heavily. "Tell ya what." He started, scooting my sunglasses towards me. "I'm going on a huntin' trip tomorrow. If I take you along, and you impress me, I won't tell those people nothin'."

"That's all? Just go on a hunt and you won't say a word?" It almost seemed too easy. Then again, he probably didn't know that I practically grew up in the woods. My father took me hunting three or four times a month after he retired. He would set up obstacle courses that I had to navigate or he would tell me to go through a section of trees without his help. Navigating in the countryside was a lot easier for me than going through a city. "You're on." I said with a smirk.


	3. Chapter 2

A loud metallic bang shattered my peaceful slumber. My hand was on my Storm instantly, but before I could even pull it out from underneath my pillow a large, calloused hand shoved mine down.

"You don't need that. Not yet anyway." Merle drawled in a low voice, making me breathe a sigh of relief.

"Give a girl a heart attack, why don't you?" I retorted sarcastically. His hand slackened and withdrew. I took a moment to calm my racing heart. For a brief moment upon waking, I had thought I was back in my parent's apartment and that someone was trying to break in. Then reality set in. I was _not_ safe and sound with my parents watching over me. I was out in the wild, alone, and my parents were likely dead. The thought had me slumping back onto my pillow, a cold feeling embedded within my chest.

Overt displays of emotion had always been something I struggled with. Given that I had almost no one to talk with aside from my parents the last few years, I found myself bottling things up instead of expressing them. My justification being that I didn't want to burden them any more than I already had. I know that they wouldn't see it that way, but I still felt it. Every time I thought about bringing something up to them, my mind inexorably tracked back to a conversation I had overheard when I was seven years old. The only reason I remember it so vividly was because it was the first time I had heard my mother cry.

"_Optic nerve hypoplasia." I heard my mother's voice slowly enunciate, as if she didn't understand what it meant._

"_In layman's terms," An unfamiliar male voice started. "The part of her eyes that's connected to her brain, the part that sends the information her eyes see, is underdeveloped."_

_A long pause, then "I… see. Is there- is there a cure for it? A treatment maybe?" _

_The man sighed sadly. "Unfortunately, there is no cure. The best we can do is to give her hormone therapy and monitor her growth. It is unlikely that her vision will ever recover. She is fully capable of leading a normal life in spite of this." My mother made a choked noise that sounded like a cross between a sob and a cough._

"_I- We don't have much money. My husband is deployed to Kuwait and he's our only source of income at the moment." _

I pushed the memory aside, knowing I would only find negativity down that path. It seemed that Merle had woken me up very early, as not even the crickets were singing their song yet. "What time is it?" I asked in a low voice, simultaneously slotting my Storm into its holster.

"If you're gonna roll with Merle, you best be ready to be up at the asscrack of dawn." He half-whispered. His heavy boots clomped towards the door and outside, shutting the door behind him with surprising care given how loud he had been when he opened it. Though now that I think about it, it was probably just a ploy to wake me up. I dressed and suited up quickly, ensured that my rifle was properly loaded, and followed out the door. The only sound I could hear other than the occasional snore was coming from about fifty feet away and involved muted curses. The air was chilly, and I was glad I had my hoodie.

As I got closer, I could make out faint conversation. "-see why you gotta take the gimp along. She's just gonna end up gettin' herself killed anyway." A male voice drawled in a similar accent to Merle. Though this one was grittier and less raspy than his. His words had no effect on me, as I had been called much worse.

"That's where you're wrong, little brother." Merle replied blithely. "She said that she walked all the way here from downtown Atlanta yesterday. You know how many geeks are between there and here? Even if she didn't kill 'em all, it takes a person of talent to do that without bein' able to see." Smiling internally at his compliment, I chose this moment to speak up.

"Seventeen geeks, to be exact." I took a small bit of delight in the sharp gasp I heard from one of them. "Nineteen if you count the one I killed just before I got here and the one in camp."

The first voice, who I now knew as Merle's brother, spoke up again. "You always come sneakin' up on people like that?" There was no small amount of venom in his voice.

"Chill, little brother." Merle said with a placating tone. "I heard her comin' up here just fine. Not my fault your ears ain't as good as mine." The little brother scoffed.

"Surprised anyone can hear themselves think with the way you were blabberin'. Lucky you didn't wake up the whole camp." There was a shuffle of cloth, almost sounding like something rough scraping against a sleeping bag, and the brother let out a grunt. "Turn that light off when you go." He huffed.

Merle let out a raspy laugh. "Princess Darlyna here always did need his beauty sleep." There was a whooshing sound, followed by something heavy landing in the leaf-covered terrain about ten feet to my left. It seemed that the brother had thrown something at Merle. "Now, that ain't no way to treat a nice boot." Merle admonished, stepping with surprising lightness as he went to retrieve the boot and come back. "Make sure you tan that deer hide on the hill today while we're gone." He said with a grunt as he bent down to replace the boot inside their tent. "We'll be back around noon if we don't see nothin'."

The brother murmured something that vaguely sounded like 'fuck off', before there was a sharp click. Presumably that was the light turning off. Merle zipped up their tent and placed a guiding hand on my shoulder. I almost flinched at the contact, but it seemed like he was a touchy kind of person.

"Now, we ain't gonna be goin' too far from camp, just a few miles. Enough to let me get a feel for how you handle things." He drawled in a half-whisper.

"Your brother seems uh, nice." I commented softly.

Merle let out a mirthless laugh. "Ya don't gotta sugarcoat it. He's an asshole. I'm an asshole. There ain't a person left alive that ain't an asshole."

A frown appeared on my face. "I'm not an asshole." I took a moment to step over a fallen tree that I had heard Merle do the same a half-second earlier.

His feet stopped, and he turned to face me. "Now how in the Hell did you know _that_ was there?" He spoke with a surprised tone.

I was unable to help a smirk. "I heard the difference in your gait and figured that there was something in the way." Merle didn't reply verbally, merely letting out a hum of indifference.

"And for the record, you ain't an asshole. You're a kid." He said after a moment.

"I'm not a kid." I retorted immediately. "I'm 19." Merle opted not to reply to that comment, instead determined to continue on the hunt. I couldn't really blame him, considering chatting like we were was going to drive all the animals away.

We walked east for a long time, long enough that the crickets had woken up and were causing a ruckus, before even finding anything living or dead. I heard it long before Merle saw it. The grotesque crunching and chewing of an undead eating something. Instead of listening to it, I opted to focus my senses elsewhere. Though, I didn't get far when I suddenly heard a loud, wet, crunch followed by an even wetter squelching sound. My stomach turned and I nearly vomited on the spot. Even living in the city with a near perpetual smell of death hadn't done anything to my senses like what Merle had.

"Merle, chill the fuck out." I hissed, clutching my stomach. What came next, almost sounded like a boot scraping against a tree, but I quickly tuned that out, lest the food I had last night make an encore appearance.

"Easy, princess. Just takin' care of business." Merle spoke placatingly. At least I didn't have to hear the wretched thing anymore. "It's getting' lighter out. Still can't see very far though." He whispered.

I was just about to speak up, when I heard crunching footsteps to my left. It didn't have a two-legged gait, and it sounded fairly bulky. It was either a deer or a hog. The timing between steps was too delayed to be a hog, so it was likely a deer. I held out a hand to tell Merle to be silent and moved forward towards the noise.

"I think there's a deer about forty feet that way." I whispered as quietly as I could to Merle. Thankfully, he shut up and with a quietness that surprised me given how brash he was, crept over to me. Something big and leafy, presumably a bush, barred my way to the deer. I didn't want to risk spooking it, so I remained still and waited for Merle.

"I don't see shit, but I ain't takin' no chances." He knelt next to me, and I heard the distinct sound of a crossbow string being pulled back. It seemed that Merle had come prepared after all. He paced to my right, towards the edge of the bush, likely trying to get a clearer view of the deer. I knew it was there, it was munching on some plants and huffing occasionally. I focused my senses, keeping my breathing slow and quiet so it wouldn't interfere with my aim. The deer shifted its stance slightly, it's feet crunching on loose gravel, which told me exactly what direction it was facing.

A grin split my features as I took aim and pulled the trigger. My HK coughed once, and I heard an impact right about where I estimated the deer would have been. It thumped to the ground loudly, exhaled once more, then fell silent. My shot had to have hit it in the head, by my estimation. It would not be getting back up. I flipped the safety on and lowered my weapon.

"How's about that, Merle?" I called out to the other hunter cheekily. When he didn't respond after a few seconds, I called out again. "Merle?" I was starting to get worried. Had he advanced around the clearing to entrap the deer and I had hit him by mistake? "Merle!" I started to head over to where he was last when I heard it.

Muffled, wheezing laughter. I knew immediately that he had been keeping silent to try to freak me out. It seemed that he figured out that I knew, because he stopped trying to muffle his laughing. "That's not funny!" I shouted angrily. This seemed to spur on his laughter, as it got even louder.

"The look on your face!" He guffawed, before devolving into a series of coughs. After some time, the coughing eventually subsided, and Merle let out a deep sigh. "Well, let's go check it out." With that done, he cut straight through the bush, not even trying to be silent anymore. I sighed and followed after him, getting poked by several branches on the way. As I got closer, the pungent smell of blood became more apparent. Not wanting to trip over the deer, I stopped a few feet away from where I had heard it fall.

"What's the verdict?" I asked.

Merle let out a breathless, almost disbelieving laugh. "'What's the verdict?' she asks as she gets a practically perfect shot straight to the brainpan. You took the top of the skull clean off." He paused for a moment, probably giving the deer a once-over, and cleared his throat. "Well, best to not keep 'em waiting." He grunted and I heard the carcass of the deer slide along the leaves. He seemed to be heading in the direction that we had come from, so I fell in line behind and to the left of him, not wanting to get blood on myself.

In an odd way, the smell of deer blood was comforting. It reminded me of all the good times I'd had with my father. It also had the unfortunate side effect of bringing up emotions that I would rather leave buried. I took a deep breath, attempting to center myself and purge the negative thoughts from my head.

This was cut short by a distant gunshot. It didn't sound like it came from the direction that camp was in, but I had overheard a conversation last night between a man called Dale, and Shane. The latter said that the place that we were camped at, a quarry, was surrounded by cliff faces and would mask loud sounds well through refraction. It could very well have come from camp, which if Merle's suddenly increased pace was any indication, there was a good chance that it had. I increased my speed to a brisk walk, being extra cautious about my footing, and hurried after Merle.

"What do you think that was?" I called out.

"Dunno," Merle grunted. The deer had to have been heavy, but Merle was still moving at a pretty decent pace. "Whoever it was had better have a damn good reason." We had walked a fair distance away from the camp, and it took us about half an hour to get back to the perimeter of it with Merle towing the deer. He told me dawn was about to break right before we got to camp. It seemed he was willing to keep my secret for now. That brother of his would be a different story.

In my distracted state, I had failed to hear the undead that was lurking behind a tree. I planted my forward foot in an effort to juke it, but slipped on the wet, leafy terrain. My ass hit the ground and it was on me. Its rancid breath nearly made me gag, but I managed to get a grip on its neck. Nearly all my strength was required just to keep it at bay long enough to retrieve my knife, a stiletto that my father had gifted me for self-defense against the dead. With a grunt of effort, I planted the seven-inch-long blade all the way to the hilt in its skull. The undead ceased all movement and no longer bombarded me with its stinky breath. I withdrew my dagger and shoved it off of me, breathing a sigh of relief at the close call.

I reached into my back pocket for a pack of tissues when someone came running up to me. "You okay?" A woman voiced asked with a concerned tone. If I remembered correctly then this was Andrea, one of the people who had visited me last night.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just caught me off guard." I replied, wiping my blade clean. The stiletto was most famous for a quick and clean kill, so there probably wasn't any blood on me. I sheathed my dagger once more and stood, my HK flopping against my chest as I did so. "Where's Merle?" I asked as I crumpled up and discarded the used cloth.

"He dragged that deer over to his tent." Andrea paused a moment, as if turning to look at the person in question. "I can't wait to eat that tonight. 'Bout time he finally brought something back other than squirrel or rabbit." She added the latter part in a hushed voice that she probably didn't think I heard.

Thankfully, I didn't have to try to piece together where exactly where the RV was, because I heard the familiar slam of its door to my left. Something that helped me keep track of everything was to take note of key landmarks in an area. Like the currently crackling fire pit for example. I knew that the RV was about ten steps away from it towards the south, so all I needed was another point of interest to triangulate where exactly I had to go. As I had yet to find another easily audible point of interest, finding my way around here would be difficult to say the least.

"Hey, Angel." I heard a male voice call out to me from the direction opposite the RV. It was one I had not heard before. "I'm T-Dog. Shane told me to help set up your tent."

"T… Dog?" I asked apprehensively. To my relief, rather than being offended, the man just laughed.

"Well, my real name is Theodore Douglas, but I've always gone by T-Dog." He leaned towards me and in a hushed voice added "don't tell no one that, by the way."

"Your secret is safe with me, T-Dog." I replied with a mock salute, earning another laugh from the man. "So, where's my tent?"

There was a sound akin to a jigsaw puzzle box being shaken. "Got it right here." Oh, that was problematic.

"Um, well the thing is, my hand-eye coordination isn't the best doing those kinds of things. The last time my dad had me set up a tent I nearly broke my hand." Both technically half-truths. Though I had tried to set up my tent on my own and nearly smashed my hand. Thankfully the mallet had been made of rubber instead of metal or wood.

"That's no prob." He said dismissively. "I can set it up for you. Grab some chow while ya wait." I gave a short thank you and headed back to the RV. I wasn't really comfortable getting food from here yet, so I opted to pull from my own stores. In the end, I wound up eating a two pop-tarts and cleaning the HK afterwards. I couldn't remember the last time my father had done so, and I didn't want it to gum up. Especially after I fired it about twenty times yesterday. Better safe than sorry.

With that over with, I gathered all of my belongings and begrudgingly headed back outside. Don't get me wrong, I was glad that I didn't have to watch my back by myself. The social interaction, something I had struggled with all my life, was what I wasn't looking forward to. At least until I proved myself. T-Dog called out to me, thankfully, and I navigated my way to what would be the third point of interest in the camp.

It was a fair distance away from what I considered to be the central fire pit, nearly thirty steps northeast. "I got you set up next to Amy and Andrea." T-Dog commented as I arrived at my tent. I reached forward tentatively and felt relieved when I grasped onto the open entrance. After tapping my boots to rid them of any excess dirt or muck, I stepped inside properly. There was already a sleeping bag inside, so I didn't have to deploy my own.

I took a deep breath to calm my nerves. "Thank you, T-Dog. I really appreciate this."

"Consider it compensation for bringing us dinner tonight." After that, I heard heavy steps moving away from the tent. A feeling of relief washed over me at finally being alone. I put all my gear on the empty half of the tent and laid down on my sleeping bag, not even bothering to open it properly.

Much in mirror of Merle waking me up this morning, a loud bang startled me into awareness. Almost immediately, I heard two voices arguing: Merle and Shane. A pit of unease made itself known within my chest.

"…you dumb hick!" Shane spoke with a raised voice. What had Merle done that prompted such an insult?

"And I'm tellin' _you_ that me and firecrotch heard a gunshot when we was comin' back." Merle retorted. Firecrotch? What the Hell did that mean? Was that supposed to be an insult? A compliment? Either way, I was determined to get them to stop their pointless arguing.

"What's all the yelling about?" I called out, still feeling drowsy from my brief nap. I only heard one other person aside from the two men, who it was I had no idea.

"Well well," Merle said with aplomb. "Sleepin' Beauty finally decided to grace us with her presence. After all, it's only" He trailed off, before adding a moment later. "Quarter past eleven."

Shane interjected over Merle. "He said you two heard a gunshot on your way back from hunting."

I nodded affirmatively. "Yeah it came from the west, towards the city."

"Just the one?" Shane's voice suddenly dropped with the realization that Merle had been telling the truth.

"Yep." I paused a moment to suppress a yawn. "It didn't sound supersonic, so it was probably a sidearm of some kind." The two men remained quiet for a long moment. Evidently that gunshot had them worried. I personally didn't see the need. They could be concerned about potential looters, but we had plenty of able-bodied people from what I heard.

Merle was the first to speak. "Well, if you're done harassing me, Officer Asshole, I gotta finish cleanin' that deer for dinner."

Between Merle and Shane's abrasiveness towards one another, that gunshot, and the fact that this was my first real day here, something told me that today would be exhausting.


End file.
